The Collaborative Divorce Advantage

What You Will Learn

Divorce can be soul-sucking. Finances and families have been ripped apart within the confines of a courthouse. The Collaborative Divorce Advantage shows you there is a better way.

If you are looking to protect your finances, your children and your future by avoiding debilitating conflict that can sabotage your emotions and peace of mind - now and for years to come - then this book is for you.

As an anthology book, each chapter is written by a different progressive divorce professional highlighting their role in a collaborative divorce or mediation framework while sharing some of their best advice, often with anecdotal illustrations.

The Collaborative Divorce Advantage is divided into three parts each reflecting a primary benefit of the collaborative divorce and mediation process.

Stay Out of Court

Explore how traditional divorce litigation resembles the ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’ and how a collaborative law attorney can ensure you avoid this in your divorce.

Learn what “divorcing consciously” means and how it can have a significant positive impact on your post-divorce future.

Secure Your Financial Future

Eight financial anecdotes revealed to help you form mutually advantageous divorce agreements.

Don't Go Through It Alone

Advocate for your child with a child specialist who ﻿gives them a voice ﻿and ensures healthier co-parenting.

Rework emotions with the help of a divorce coach to remain psychologically intact and transition into a new family and co-parenting dynamic.

"In my 27-year experience with Collaborative Practice, The Collaborative Divorce Advantage has the best treatment of process choice, financial, child specialist and divorce coach descriptions I have seen. Buy or steal this book and give it to every divorce practitioner and potential or current client.”

Stu Webb

Founder of Collaborative Law

“If you’re even thinking about divorce . . . read this book! You’ll discover how a Collaborative Team will help you reach agreements that benefit you, your children, your partner, your wallet, your sanity and the quality of your co-parenting for years to come."

Meet The Authors

Part 1: Stay Out of Court

Chapter 1:

How to Avoid the Prisoner's Dilemma in Your Divorce

The biggest predictor of future success of a divorce is first making an informed decision about the process you decide to embark on.

In this chapter, 17-year collaborative divorce expert, Kevin J. Chroman, reviews the benefits and pitfalls which accompany your choice to litigate, versus using a collaborative or mediation model. Upon examining the benefits and detriments regarding each divorce process, spouses can avoid significant mistakes, which may otherwise ultimately cost families far more than they initially believed.

Chapter 2:

People often wonder how they can protect their children, be heard, get their needs met, and get a fair result in their divorce without hiring expensive lawyers to fight for them in court.

In this chapter, experienced family law attorney/mediators John Hoelle and Peter Fabish describe how Conscious Divorce Mediation can save you time, money, and heartache, and produce better results than what could be achieved through traditional litigation.

Part 2: Secure Your Financial Future

Chapter 3:

The Key to Avoiding Money Mistakes in Divorce: A Divorce Financial Planner

In divorce, getting the money aspects correct is critical to a successful future.

In this chapter, 15-year divorce finance expert, Kevin R. Worthley, reviews the benefits of utilizing a divorce financial analyst to help spouses avoid significant financial mistakes and guide them to a workable solution in their divorce agreement. Included are discussion areas of future cash flows, taxes, insurance, college and other areas of personal finance.

Chapter 4:

Construct Mutually Advantageous Divorce Financial Agreements

In this chapter, divorce financial analyst and mediator, Bill Morris, shares how creative solutions can help divorcing spouses save money even when they’re separating their assets. He illustrates his solutions with eight anecdotal stories.

Bill has 25 years of experience as a business consultant and financial advisor. He is a founding member of the East Tennessee Collaborative Alliance whose goal is to construct less destructive divorce agreements that include detailed financial plans, guiding clients towards a positive future.

Part 3: Don't Go Through It Alone

Chapter 5:

The Collaborative Child Specialist: The Best Kept Secret to Protecting Your Kids From Divorce Fall-Out

In this chapter, Ria Severance, LMFT, draws from over 25 years of clinical experience to outline how Collaborative Divorce, unlike any other divorce model, includes a neutral Collaborative Child Specialist (CS) to ensure all divorce decisions consider the well-being of your children.

Ria enumerates how the CS, guided by your highest values, helps you protect your children from the fall-out of divorce throughout the process, and helps secure a healthier co-parenting context for raising your children in the years to come.

Chapter 6:

A New True North: Navigating a Path with Your Divorce Coach to Your New Understanding of Family

People who divorce are most often looking for peace from the constant conflict in their relationships. However, for most of the divorces, the pain continues on after the agreements have been made. Ignoring this fact is understandable because there is no guide to working through the emotions while still married.

In this chapter, Dominique Walmsley, a divorce coach and mental health professional, offers brilliant insights into the hidden treasure that can bring the paradoxical harmony and tie up all the loose ends of divorce.

"I strongly recommend The Collaborative Divorce Advantage to anyone wanting to spare their family the pain and cost of the standard litigated divorce in family court. This book is a short course in how to divorce collaboratively, including helpful guidance regarding finances, co-parenting and the emotional aspects of divorce."

Bill Eddy

Family lawyer, Therapist and Mediator. Developer of the New Ways for Families® skills training method and the Author of several books, including ﻿﻿High Conflict People in Legal Disputes﻿﻿ ﻿﻿﻿﻿www.﻿NewWays4Families.com

"This book puts decency, practicality, and humanity back into the very sad, but common process of divorce. Too often, divorce is a vehicle for anger, self-righteousness, and vindictiveness. The enormous costs are born by former spouses, and their children, friends and families. Read and digest this book if you or your spouse are not getting along, have contemplated divorce or even never considered divorce. It will save you heartache, money, and self-respect, and protect your children from unnecessary emotional hardship."

Dr. Alan E. Fruzzetti

International DBT expert, researcher and speaker. Author of ﻿﻿﻿﻿T﻿﻿﻿he High Conflict Couple: A Dialectical Behavior Therapy Guide to Finding Peace, Intimacy and Validation

Actionable Insights from Progressive DivorceThought Leaders

*available in eBook & paperback

“This is a tremendous go-to guide for parents who want to do divorce differently. As a lawyer and a divorced mom of two sons, I wish I had a resource like this going through my divorce and the wisdom of these practitioners to guide us to a common vision when emotions ran high. There is no substitute for a caring team. This book will help you identify the kinds of practitioners you may want to help your family through this process — and the core values you will stick to during one of the most important transitions of life.”

Martha J. Hartney

“This excellent compilation of easy to read articles makes a great case for the collaborative approach to divorce in almost any situation. Moreover the individual perspectives from professionals ranging from divorce lawyers to financial planners to child experts to coaches provide detailed and step-by-step ways that separating parents can hire professionals to work as a team to achieve fair and lasting settlements that enable each of them to move on with their lives.”

Alan Alhadeff

Proactively navigate your divorce...starting NOW.

Start down the least contentious path to the best possible divorce outcome for yourself and your child(ren).

*Available in eBook & paperback

“These authors have truly made their mark putting Collaborative Practice and Mediation at the top of the legal mountain for families. From cover to cover, an innovative and insightful must-read for all divorcing couples and the therapists serving them. The authors successfully challenge divorcing couples as well as divorce professionals to segue from litigation towards the world of Collaborative Divorce and Mediation.”

“The Collaborative Divorce Advantage is an extremely useful read for couples who have reached the mutually shared conclusion that their marriage should end. This concise and insightful collection of essays by collaborative attorneys, mediators, certified divorce financial analysts, and licensed family therapists points out the risks and costs of traditional adversarial divorce litigation and illuminates a better path through the divorce minefield.”

Bruce I. Kogan, Esq.

﻿﻿﻿﻿Professor of Law and Mediator, Roger Williams University School of Law, Co-Founder and Past President – Rhode Island Mediators Association